What About an Hour of Design?

December 16, 2014

Last week, schools across the United States were completing an Hour of Code. Coding has taken the education landscape by storm, with the President himself hosting 100 of the nation’s top computer science teachers, including two from Oakland Unified School District.

Code.org, a site that perhaps is the epicenter of the movement, came to a halt last Monday as millions of students nationwide hit the site to code. Other organizations both local and national are on board including Yes We Code, Level Playing Field, and Black Girls Code, with the belief that coding is the gateway to success for our young people.

Not surprisingly the movement is big in the Bay Area, but many successful business people and entrepreneurs are not coders. I’d like to see a similar focus on design, systems administration, networking, and entrepreneurism. Give our students a taste of all these areas and others beyond coding.

Let’s have an “Hour of Design” where all kids create art and design using software from Adobe, Autodesk, and others, and let’s have an “Hour of Video” where students create a film demonstrating what they are learning. You get the idea. We all have different talents, so let’s help students discover them.